When Hope Lives pt 2
by cymberleah
Summary: Read the warning! Knives, Vash, OCs, much after the anime. 2nd part of a sequal to When Dreams Change.
1. Warning, read me Do it

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THIS IS PART TWO OF AN ALREADY STARTED FIC.

Are we clear on this? Part one, found here: , is 131 chapters long. Have you ever tried uploading that many chapter to ff.net? Let me tell you, it's a serious pain in the processor. 

This is not where you want to jump on. Follow the link above, read that part, then pick up here. 

I will not be responsible for anyone who wants to know why this doesn't make sense. You have been warned.

Oh. Yeah.

This is a part two of a part to. If you haven't read When Dreams Changefirst, well… trust me. Read that one first, even before part one of this fic.

Clear as mud?


	2. After a long time

What? Write? *cough*

********************************************************************************

Vash leaned back on his heels and didn't bother trying to suppress the sigh that escaped through his lips. But once it turned into a yawn he quickly bit it off. As the only one left awake he couldn't afford a nap.

He wanted very badly to close his eyes but knew that would be a terrible idea. Healing Anne had taken all of Knives' and Alex's strength, and most of his as well. He would have done as much as the others if he could, but was hampered by artificial arm. There were times that he felt that losing his arm hadn't been so bad; that even the power in one was more than enough for a single mortal to command. But today he had wished to have his old appendage back, since they could have used the extra strength, and more besides. 

His brother and son both looked gray, tired beyond anything they had tried before. He had elected to stay and watch over them while they slept since he was just a little less tired, pale instead of ashen. Less of the work had fallen to him because he could do less, and as his gaze lifted from the sleeping forms of his family to take in the prone body in the bulb, he wished once more that he could have done better.

Wishing for it was futile, but that couldn't stop him from feeling slightly inadequate. What they had just been through was overwhelming, past what they comprehended when they had set to the task. None of them had thought that it would be easy. They were young, strong, and had practiced healing a bit on the ship. They had the confidence of inexperience on their side when they began, and the lesson had left them weary and mostly hopeless.

Anne was more dead than alive. She had lost more blood than a human could and survive, and only the temperate environment of the bulb was keeping her body warm and functioning at all. If he watched closely he could see the pulse in her neck tremble faintly. Aside from that there was nothing. No higher brain function, no movement, no tell-tale or sign to give them even a shred of hope that they had been in time, that her mind still functioned in the hastily patched-up body.

Once again his hand came up to idly rub at the bare spot on his chest where once a metal grate had been. A doctor, despairing of his chances at life had bolted it to the remains of ribs that had been shattered in one of his many fights. He had been sure that Vash would not live out the week, and then the month, after he had needed to take out the shards that remained of his bones. But he had, lingering in the hospital until the physician reluctantly pronounced him free to leave. Fixing that injury had been the worst scar that his son had ever tried to remove. 

He didn't know what Knives' training in healing entailed, but knowing his brother it hadn't involved much in the way of pain.

And Anne had been so much worse then anything they would have possibly tried. His ribs had healed enough that Alex hadn't needed to deal with blood spurting from unexpected places. For Anne, fixing a vessel at one spot nearly always created another leak as a strained section gave way under the renewed blood pressure. It was a race to heal two problems in the time it took the first one to give way again.

In comparison, lifting and fixing the shattered sections of her windpipe back into their correct positions was almost easy, and that had been a puzzle that would put jigsaws to shame. It wasn't that there were so many pieces that needed to be realigned, but that the pieces were a confusing mass of angles to begin with, and needed to be supported while the other two fixed the rest of the damage.

Vash stood away from the rail, shaking his head in an effort to dispel the thoughts that plagued him. If only he hadn't messed up here, or if he had noticed that Knives needed help sooner with his task, or if they had just had a little more practice, or a little more time. Then maybe she wouldn't be floating in there, cradled in the arms of their sister, unresponsive to the world.

Then again, maybe she was just sleeping. A sleep so deep that her mind had turned itself off.

Vash noticed a tear trickling down his cheek and swiped it away angrily. She wasn't dead, or at least there was still some hope. Some small hope, some faint chance that they had been good enough and lucky enough to have saved her. He stepped forward, thinking to go down the stairs and check the terminals. They might notice some activity that he could not. But with the first downward movement his ankle turned under his weight and he stumbled. Clutching at the railing, he limped down the steps and slowly started across the room.

He had almost made it to the closest terminal, his hands resting on the chair while he mustered the energy to walk around it and sit down, when a hollow boom echoed through the room. Startled, Vash tried to jump, but lacking the energy and the coordination, his tired body gave way and he collapsed on the floor. The sound came again as he was getting up and he glanced over towards the door. 

Pulling himself into the chair, he quickly navigated the menu system and pulled up the video feed for the corridor. Armored guards with many black and wicked looking guns were packed in the hall. As he watched, they pulled back a battering ram to pummel the door once more. 

Flicking on the intercom, he said, "Can I help you?"


	3. He will not die

Effie walked out of the room, her mind focused on only one thing.

He will not die. 

The thought repeated with every step she took. He. _Step. _Will. _Step. _ Not. _Step. _Die. _Step._

She had somehow managed to get him over her shoulder, somehow found her way out of the maze the warehouse had become. The dogs that had threatened them on the way in were silent as she left, their presence not even registering on her as she stumbled through the empty hallways. Had they been there? Had they slunk away to attend their new master as she suffered another attack of insanity? Had she just not seen them, her vision too focused on each step as she tried to get them out of that deserted hell?

It was so hard to carry Mark. He was heavier than anything she had ever tried to lift before, let alone move. And he was big, very big to her petite. The weight of him bowed her back, but losing only a couple inches of her height had his hands dragging on the ground behind her. She could feel it after every few steps, her posture slipping enough that she began to abrade his knuckles once more. Every time it happened she wanted to scream in frustration, her spine stiffening with the burst of anger. Then everything would be okay, he wouldn't be dragging behind her. He would be fine.

But then the anger would be spent and his weight would drag her down again, starting the cycle anew. It stole into her mind, possessing her thoughts. If she could get him to the hospital, if she could keep his hands off the ground, if she could just keep going, then Mark would be ok. Everything was going to be fine.

He will not die.

Walking out into the bright light of the suns nearly blinded her and did cause her to stumble. She fought gravity to keep from dropping Mark and the struggle was enough to keep her from going into even deeper confusion as her mind faced a new shock. How could it still be day? How could it still be the same day, the same hour as it was when they entered? The consistency of the day seemed to mock her. 

Her feet slowed as her mind raced to process the concept that everything could change for her and other people's lives could be untouched. Anne was dead, Mark… would not die. Ace was behind her, gloating over her victory, over the bodies of her friends, and other people would never know. 

She closed her eyes for a moment while her mind struggled to keep working. How could this be? How could her entire world be destroyed and no one else even know? Or care? She surrendered to the surreal, stopped trying to make sense of what had happened. 

It had. It was horrible, awful, and beyond what she could comprehend. Accepting that, she opened her eyes and forced her pace to quicken. She shifted Mark's body higher on her shoulder and straightened her spine once more.

She had to get to a hospital. Mark will not die, not so long as she could keep walking towards that goal. She would get him to a hospital, and they would make him better, and then she could think about what had happened back there. 

It seemed easier to carry him now. Maybe it was because she was no longer fighting to understand, or maybe it was because she had managed to escape the warehouse. The dark of the halls seemed to have been clutching at her, trying to keep her from leaving but the light of the suns gave her energy. 

Regardless, she didn't have much farther to travel before she met the first person retracing the path that Knives had taken. Anne's blood had left a clear trail back to the warehouse. A brave man had taken in the blank look of despair on Knives' face and been struck with the urge to know what had happened, to see if anyone was left behind, to see if he could help of if he needed to call the sheriff's office.

When he saw Effie he was literally stunned, his need to know what had happened superseded by the ludicrously sad picture before him. The small woman was carrying the much larger man as if he was hardly any burden at all. He took in the bandages that were wrapped around her burden's legs, the blood on her hands and smeared on her face, the fey look in the eyes that seemed to not even see him as she passed by.

"Hey there," he said a bit more loudly than he intended, broken out of his stupor as he jogged a couple steps to fall in beside her. "Do you need some help?"

Her head turned slowly, so very slowly as her mind processed first his presence and then his words. "Help?" she repeated, trying to understand the word. After a moment she gave up and looked ahead of her again. "He will not die," she said slowly.

He looked at her, then at Mark, then at her again. Realizing that she was not entirely focused on the present world he tried a different tack. "You're going to a hospital, right? Let me go call an ambulance. He needs an ambulance, ok?"

She turned her head again, her eyes fogged as she tried to comprehend. "I can't stop. I have to get him to a hospital."

"A hospital, yes, a hospital," he said, glad to have gotten through to her. Sort of. "The ambulance can get there faster. Just get him to that store over there, and we'll call an ambulance. The ambulance will get him there faster than you can."

"Ambulance?"

"Yes." He ducked behind her and grabbed her free arm to gently steer her to the store. "They'll be faster. I promise."

"He will not die," she protested. 

"No," he assured her. "He'll be fine. Ambulance to hospital." They reached the store and he gently took Mark off her shoulder before dashing into the store and using their phone.

Effie found herself on the ground next to him. She shifted on the sidewalk until she could lay his head in her lap, her hands smoothing the hair on his forehead. "You will not die," she whispered, over and over again until the ambulance came, heedless of the crowd that formed around them.


	4. Opening the door

Why yes, two days in a row!

I got bribed. Super cookie, to me!

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Had he the energy, Vash would have laughed at the reactions of the guards. They jumped in surprise, almost to a man. But unlike his start they all managed to stay on their feet. One might attribute that to their state of less exhaustion, but Vash thought it might just be one more sign of how life liked to see him act the clown.

One of the men outside, more quick witted than the rest, pushed his way past the man on his right and pressed the switch for the intercom. "You could open the door for us, if you would be so kind." His voice was laden with irony. He obviously didn't believe that Vash would do anything of the sort, but thought that someone should pretend that the easy way was actually an option.

Vash looked at the monitor for a moment before replying, his brain slowly processing just why that would not be his best choice. Seeing the guns helped him keep his focus. "I'm not so sure that would be a good idea. Speaking from this side of the door. You all seem rather hostile."

"Hostile? I don't know where you would get that idea. We just want to get the plant back online, and you saboteurs out of commission. You should know, but that side of the door isn't going to be a safe haven for long. These doors weren't designed to keep people out. You might as well open them now and save yourselves the repair bill."

"I'm broke anyway," Vash muttered, forgetting that they could still hear him in the hall.

"Then we'll just have to take it out in blood."

"Blood?" he whined. "But isn't that a little harsh? Can't we talk about this?" The man at the intercom had already turned away and taken his place on the ram. "Aren't you being a little hasty?" he protested, then sighed. The men in the hall weren't interested in listening to him talk, and he was too tired to come up with any great schemes to get them to go away. "No one ever wants to talk to me when they can be violent instead," he muttered as they shifted into position. 

"Fine. Fine!" he said more loudly as the first iteration of the word didn't stop them. "Give me a minute and I'll get the door open. A full minute," he added, knowing he was going to need it.

It was a hard task to get up out of the chair. Given the fact that he knew the armed and dangerous men were coming in with or without his help, assisting them seemed his best option. But the chair was closer to the ground and much more comfortable than being on his feet, and he was so tired that his body had stopped listening to him. It took at least fifteen seconds before he could convince his legs that he was actually going to require more work out of them, and almost that long to get his arms to help push him out of the confines of the nice chair.

Once he made it to his feet his task got easier. The door couldn't have been more than twenty steps away. Twenty very far away steps. Big. Long. Paces. The distance had seemed so short when he had rushed into the room, barely a hint of space before he had reached Anne and Knives. Now it was like a huge chasm, a gulf between him and his goal. Every labored step seemed to barely bridge it, to hardly get him any closer. The press of seconds weighed on him and he was sure that there was no way he was going to reach the door before his time was up. But he made it, and even in less than the minute he had asked for. 

Barely.

Reaching the door, he disengaged the lock and tried to palm open the door. Kepping with his luck, it didn't move.

"Um, guys?" he said after turning on the intercom again. "I think you broke it."

"Unlock the door, Vash," came the impatient response. 

"I did unlock it. But I can't get it open. Try it on your side."

"The panel still says the door is locked." Vash could hear the rapping of knuckles on the door. 

"It's not locked. My panel shows green."

"As far as subterfuge goes, this is pretty weak." The pounding grew louder.

"I'm not lying. The door is… oh."

"Oh?"

"Just… Sparks are bad, right?" Exhaustion slurred his voice as he stopped trying to keep it clear and concentrated more on the new problem. Vash let go of the intercom button and looked about for the fire extinguisher. If they hadn't changed things about, there should be one under the main panel. He dropped to one knee and pried the cover off the recess, then grinned as he saw the bright red canister. As he reached in to grab it something popped and more sparks cascaded down, singing his hand. He couldn't help but wonder what intelligent designer had felt that underneath the potential fire hazard was the best place for the solution, but that thought fled when his fingers closed around the cylinder. 

Quickly pulling the extinguisher out, he yanked the pin out and aimed. White foam came pouring out in a satisfying torrent, coating the wall and oozing in the cracks in the panel. Something screeched and died, and then the door slid open.

A little.

Vash turned to look at the door, but the foam making the floor slippery and his general state of exhaustion conspired with his twisted ankle and dumped him on the ground. The guard who had been at the intercom looked in the eight inch crack, his gun aimed at the sheepishly grinning Stampede's head. 

"I think I fixed it," he said. "Next time knock a bit more gently, okay? The doors break really easily."


	5. Entering the room

*holds hands out for more bribes… or reviews*

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The solider looked down the barrel of his gun. The sight was aimed right between the blonde menace's eyes. He knew that no matter how famed he was for avoiding bullets, the man was too close to be able to dodge this one. With that final thought his finger began to take up the slack on the trigger. But before he could finish the pull his traitor eyes strayed from the sight to the man's face. He wanted to look into the eyes of the killer, to see the despair that had to be there as he took in his final breath.

What greeted him was not fear but exhaustion. Dark circles ringed his aqua eyes, extending from the bridge of his nose to his cheekbones. The skin on his face was tight and pinched, pale with bright pink circles on the apples of his cheeks. As he watched, the final breath was let out and another shallow one was pulled in, then another, and then the moment passed. He took his finger off the trigger and flicked on the safety before pulling his gun away. His free hand came up and pulled at the door, trying to force it back in its track far enough to allow ingress.

Vash closed his eyes and sighed, then opened them again before crawling out of the way. The solider finally succeeded in forcing his way in, his foot slipping a bit on the slick floor before he jumped over the foam. Looking about the room he located Vash, then dismissed the man as no current threat. Cautiously, he brought his weapon back up and crept through the room, looking behind chairs and desks for an ambush.

He knew that there were three other people in the room. There was no other way out, and all the saboteurs had to know that their punishment would not be light. Whatever damage they had caused to the plant, they were going to pay. They were trapped, and he waited for them to strike out like the animals they were.

But there was no attack. Cautiously, he crept to the stairs, what men of his that had managed to force their way through the door fanning out behind him. Perhaps they were planning on hiding by the bulb, expecting that the defenders would be reluctant to fire so near to what they were supposed to protect.

With the greatest possible care he sprinted up the stairs, then nearly tripped over Alex's sprawled body. 

The shock of seeing two of the most feared beings on the planet sleeping like babies kept him from looking at the bulb. Alex was splayed out, his arms and legs akimbo. He snored slightly, the small noise rhythmic and incongruous. Knives was curled up upon himself, one head resting on his right arm, his right hand loosely grasping the back of his head. 

Neither stirred as he stepped closer. The panels of the platform were raised over a hollow space and his boots were not designed with stealth in mind, but the hollow booms went unheeded. 

He glanced back over his shoulder to look at Vash again. What had they done in here that had worn them out so much? He saw nothing wrong with the room, nothing more than the puddle of foam by the door. There were no holes, no exposed wires. The terminals still blinked their warning lights, patterns just like the ones in the damage control office. What had they done?

His gaze flicked back across the faces of his men. Finally their expressions registered on his conscious mind, the dumfounded stares, the slack grips on the weapons that were supposed to be backing him up. Tracing the line of their sight, he turned and looked in the bulb.

And saw something that he had never been prepared to see. Plant angels rarely descended into the bulb, but not so uncommonly that their appearance was unknown. He had personally seen the phenomenon twice. Both times he had wondered at the strange appearance of the beings, wondered that anyone could be so ill-informed to call them human. They were more monsters than people, beings than persons. There was nothing about them that he could relate to, nothing that struck a chord with his soul. All the talk of them being sentient he could disregard. Cats were sentient but no one cried when they were used as mousers. Plants might be able to think, but there was nothing human about them. Nothing he could see.

Until now. His mouth gaped open slightly as his jaw dropped in amazement. The angel was holding something in her arms, no, someone. The transformed visage of the free plants was not so inhuman as that of the angels, and in repose Anne looked entirely like a hurt child being comforted in her mother's arms. One arm was slipped under her shoulders, cradling the almost androgynous form to her breast while the other gently smoothed the hair that drifted in the bulb. As he watched, the angel dipped her head down and kissed Anne on her forehead.

Before the assault the room Mr. Herman had informed them that all the intruders were plants, including Anne. That fact had seemed remote when he had heard it, only a justification for her presence here. It was simple for him to believe that she had infiltrated the plant to prepare for this day, to harm the angels in some strange bid to free her sisters. But to see someone who was so obviously inhuman, and yet still so recognizably the woman he had never had the guts to ask on a date was unnerving. Worse, it seemed a betrayal of all he had thought to be true.

His mind snapped back into his body, and with thought came action. He snapped around and marched down the stairs, pushing past his stupefied comrades. Upon reaching Vash he grabbed a handful of the man's collar and pulled him to his feet. Slamming the plant's body against the wall, he ground out, "What the hell are you freaks doing in my facility?"


	6. Assessing the damage

Vash quirked an eyebrow at the angry man holding him much farther away from the floor than he would have liked. "Sleeping? Or we would like to be, if some people didn't keep interrupting the very important nap."

By the way his shoulders were forcibly introduced to the wall, levity was not called for. 

"What did you do here? What is going on?" 

Vash put his right hand over the fist at his collar as he tried to make his eyes focus on the face that loomed so close to his nose. "Anne got hurt, badly." His gaze flicked to the bulb for a second before returning to the soldier's face. "Knives brought her here because the angel volunteered to help us heal her."

"Heal her? What happened?"

The captive shrugged, or tried to. It's hard to shrug when you're being held up by your shirt. He dropped his hand and thought a second before answering. "I didn't get very many details, but her throat was torn out. I think a dog did it, but I'm not entirely certain."

"Her throat was what?" Abruptly Vash found himself dropped as his captor whirled around to look at the bulb. "It looks fine." He turned to glare at Vash but the best part of his ire was wasted on the wall. The exhausted plant had slid down to rest on the floor in a crumpled heap.

Resigned to gravity and Vash's seeming inability to combat it, the solider kneeled. "What do you mean her throat was torn out?"

Vash lifted his too-heavy eyelids. "I mean the muscles were torn, her windpipe was crushed, there were more places that blood leaked out than it went where it was supposed to, and that she had a great big owie." 

"But she looks fine. I mean, not fine, obviously, because she's floating up in there, but there's no wound." Protests bubbled up out of him as his mind tried to picture Anne with a gaping wound where her neck used to be. Shying away from the image, the guard grabbed Vash's shoulders and shook him. "What are you saying?"

"That's where the healing her part comes into play." Vash was too tired to think anymore. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep, but as soon as he tried it the man before him knocked his head back into the wall. It hurt, and it kept him awake, and he was fed up with it. His eyes flew open, and Vash's temper snapped. "What do you need from me? The door is open, you have the video feed from this room, you can see what we did, and Anne is in the bulb. What can I say that will make things clearer for you?" Vash bit his tongue before more of the angry words could pour out. It wasn't this guard's fault he was tired. His fault that he was collecting more bruises, yes, but that was never a reason for him to lose his temper.

"I don't understand what you did."

"If it helps you any, I did it and I'm still not completely clear about all the details. We tried to keep our friend from dying. It may have worked. It may not have."

The guard turned again and looked at Anne. "She looks fine."

Vash had to finish yawning before he could speak. "Physically she's very weak. She lost a lot of blood, more than a human could lose and be expected to survive. It might be more than a plant can lose, too. Also there was a time when no blood was flowing to her brain, no fresh oxygen to keep her alive. She might be brain dead. I can't tell right now." Vash sighed and closed his eyes again. "If I wake up in a cell, I want to be with my son," he muttered before he succumbed to sleep. 

No more shakes could wake him.

The guard stood after he forced himself to relax his grip on Vash's collar. Dragging the sleeping man about wasn't going to help him much but he wanted the security that came with having one of the plants at his mercy.

He went back over to the bulb, pushing past the now larger crowd of men peering up at Anne. Every one that had made it through the door had stopped to peer up at the strange vision. Stomping up the stairs he stepped over the prone plants and kneeled at the edge of the large puddle of blood on the panels. He drew one finger along the edge, feeling the tacky stickiness of the half-dried liquid.

"Bet it stains," he muttered as he stood up. He couldn't help himself; his gaze went once more to the floating figure of Anne. There was something about the scene he could put his finger on, some feeling that lurked unnamed on the edges of his soul. Disgust? Hope? Fear? Anger? Betrayal?

His mind flicked through names but none fit.

"Are the plants secured?" The authoritative voice rang in the room, announcing Mr. Herman's arrival. 

The guard started, then scowled to hide the guilty look on his face as he turned to face his boss. 

"They're all unconscious, sir," he said before starting down the stairs.

Mr. Herman's gaze flicked up to the bulb as the guard walked towards him, but if its contents disturbed him in any way he gave no sign. "How long until the plant is functional again?" he asked. "We need to get the interlopers out of here so the techs can get to work."

"Yes, sir," said the guard with a bob of his head. "But the plant seems to be occupied at the moment."

"I saw that," commented Mr. Herman. "What's in there with her?" he asked idly, his gaze flicking around the room as he made sure that the damage he feared to see wasn't actually there.

"Who, sir. It's Anne." Abruptly, he was able to put a name to the feeling.

It was awe.


	7. In the hospital

*looks around* Hello? *hears echo*

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Effie sat in the back of the ambulance and didn't think. Thinking was too hard, and might lead to her having to deal with things. That would be wrong, and bad, and hurt, so she didn't think. It worked for her.

The paramedics hadn't wanted to let her join Mark for the trip to the hospital. Something about not being family and needing the room and some other boring, pointless words. She had just looked at the woman trying to keep her out and then climbed in after the gurney. The woman had climbed in with a dazed look on her face but hadn't said another word.

She watched as they started to work on Mark. There were lines feeding things into him, lines hooked to machines that beeped and rang and had displays that showed lines. It might have been interesting to know what everything meant and what they were doing for Mark, and had Effie not been so dazed. 

His lips were a little bit blue. Blue was wrong. Blue lips were bad; it meant he wasn't getting enough blood, or enough oxygen, or something. It was bad. She wanted to point it out but the two paramedics looked very busy and they knew their jobs better than she did. She looked at his lips and willed them to turn pink again, willed his heart to beat and his blood to flow, his lungs to fill and him to live.

For a moment nothing changed. A heartbeat, another, a third. Effie watched and willed and waited. 

Change occurred gradually, so slowly that she didn't see it at first. Maybe she was looking too closely to see when he started to get better. It was only after she blinked that she noticed the flush of life that was creeping from the edges of his lips inward. It moved so slowly, like a drop of ink through still water, but she could see some progress.

He wasn't dying. 

She would have taken the time to feel properly grateful over the news, but they arrived at the hospital. He was whipped from the ambulance and wheeled into the emergency room. Diving out of the back of the vehicle and running to keep up with them wasn't enough to secure her a place in the operating room. 

She tried glaring at people again, mindlessly hoping that the tactic would work a second time, but the emergency room personal were firm. She wasn't related to Mark, and even if she was the doctors couldn't worry about having her in their space. If they let her in, she would only be in the way, and the only person that would hurt would be Mark.

It wasn't the logic that swayed her, though. Effie might have been not entirely herself, but she was still able to determine when someone was going to be more stubborn than she could influence.

She did win a small victory in her choice of place to wait. The kindly officious orderly tried to get her to sit in the waiting room but she managed to fit herself between a cart and some temporary shelving that had collected at least a year's worth of dust underneath it. The orderly took one long look at her, then decided it wouldn't be worth the trouble it would take to get her out of there.

Effie leaned her head back against the wall and tried to will Mark to good health. She imagined that she could feel him behind her, feel him trying to cling to life. That frail thread that tied his spirit to his body was being weakened by dark lines that led to his wounds. She could see them siphoning the energy needed to keep that line from breaking. The energy she thought she could feed into it was helping, as were the efforts of the doctors. The black lines were weakened, a few dropping off entirely as the doctors managed to stop the bleeding in his legs and his right shoulder. His left one was giving them more trouble, but it also wasn't quite as threatening as the others had been. Somehow Ace had managed to miss the main cluster of nerves at the joint. The payoff was that the would was not quite as accessible for the doctors, but of all Mark's limbs it was the most likely to regain full function.

If it didn't kill him first.

She tried to sever the black thread from the end she could see but it was so hard to lift from the silver cord. She couldn't get under it, couldn't get her mind around it to try to pull it off. It slipped through her mental grip like fog.

A frown flitted over her lips, echoed in the wrinkle on her brow. How could she fix this? Each attempt, each shifting of her mental grip brought her no progress. 

Biting back a scream, she opened her eyes. As she was trying to not grab the nearest available object and toss it through the wall, it took her a moment to focus on the tableau before her. Someone was looking down at her, someone familiar. Someone in a doctor's white jacket and with a slightly harried look on her face.

"Effie, right?" said the neat figure. 

She nodded. "Is Mark okay?"

"What? Oh. Is he here, too?" The took-perfect figure shook her head, short-cropped hair not moving one iota out of its proscribed place as she made the gesture. "You're one of Anne's friends, right?" The tone was distant, someone almost an acquaintance trying to fit a piece into its right place.

Understanding hit. It was one of the people in Anne's band. The unfriendly tone didn't register; the fact that someone was near who could understand the scope of her tragedy broke the wall. "Dawn?" Effie couldn't stop the tears that welled in her eyes. "Oh, Dawn, it's horrible. Mark is… he's… and Anne…" The shock that had kept the tears away finally broke and Effie's shoulders shook with her sobbing.

Dawn leaned down into her nook, gently grabbing her chin and forcing Effie to look at her. "Whatever happened to you? Do you have jaundice? You're eyes are all yellow."


	8. Death, or life?

*grumbles that work is taking up too much of her life*

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Mr. Herman had placed the look on his subordinate's face long before the man realized what he was feeling. Awe? For the plants? He looked around the room, his gaze taking in the men staring up at the bulb. They were supposed to be securing the people who had broken into the facility and taken a highly necessary bulb offline. They were not supposed to be standing around slack-jawed and with their hands up their… up. Every moment this plant was offline drained the reservoirs of the facility even further. Just a few more hours and the city would be experiencing brownouts. With any luck that would be all they would see, but he couldn't count on it. The populace knew how much their lives depended on the plants and if their power stream was interrupted there would be a panic. And likely riots. And the deaths as people became mobs and lost all semblance of reason.

He scowled and looked away from the travesty. His gaze fell on Vash, and in lieu of screaming at his men he turned to look at one of the saboteurs. He went down on one knee, ignoring the pops and creaks of his joints, ignoring the indignities of age. 

It wasn't fair that this man could cause so much trouble and never even have to be faced with the discomforts of aging. Time was supposed to be the great equalizer, the one thing that no man could beat, and yet here lay the Stampede. Felon without equal, killer and destroyer of nearly everything he came in contact with. 

And sleeping like a baby, without even a furrow of worry or stress on that unlined brow. It was disgusting.

He reached out a hand and shook the plant's shoulder. When that garnered him no response he shook harder. Vash's head knocked the wall, the hollow sound echoing loudly in the chamber but he didn't awaken. 

Mr. Herman stood up with a grimace of distaste, wiping his fingers on his suit jacket to smear away the contagion that he imagined lingered there. 

"I do not pay you people to stand around," he remarked loudly. Many of the men jumped and a few turned to give him a sheepish look while they awaited further orders. 

"What do you want us to do, sir?" asked the closest. His soft voice penetrated the haze of ire that surrounded Mr. Herman's mind. 

What to do with them now? Kill them, whispered the voice of reason in his mind. They are a threat to you, to this facility, to humanity as a whole. The planet would be better off if they were done away with, if all of their ilk were given no chance to survive. How many lives have been prematurely ended at the hands of the men in this room? Millions. Hundreds of millions? The number could no longer be easily determined but it was higher than the number claimed by any other mass murderer in history. 

He sighed and closed his eyes as he struggled to find an answer. Death was no more than what they deserved, all of them. Too much power for men, abuse of reason and intelligence to create a more perfect means of destruction. No one would be safe while they lived, not even them. Humans feared them, those who knew what they were. All would fear, if all knew. For the moment he ignored the fact that a human woman had mated with Vash and that their son lay in this room. Far better to ignore the problem that Alex posited and concentrate on the twins that had terrorized the planet for decades.

And that was the heart of the problem. Terror. Fear.

Would Knives have killed so many had he not feared that they would kill him? Did not their efforts to destroy the legacy of their ancestors mean that the killer was right? That all his evil was justified as a means to protect his existence? 

Not for the first time Jeremy cursed those ancestors that decided to fiddle with the human genome, to make it better and then leave it to their children to overcome the jealousy and fear that resulted. Who could not be resentful when faced with the near perfection that these plant children exemplified? Faster. Stronger. Smarter. Unaging. 

Perfection, but flawed by their human minds, by the human emotions like fear, distrust, hate. All the emotions that their older brothers and sisters displayed whenever they got the chance.

Who was wrong? Was it the fault of the plants, that they were born, then persecuted for having the audacity to be better than those that made them? Was it the fault of the men, that they looked upon what even the best of them could not be and envied? Was it no one's fault and only the way things were meant to be? Did it have to be one or the other, plants or humans, incapable of living together?

He massaged his temples as the rhetorical thoughts that had plagued him for years moved from the realm of thought to action. He needed the answers and needed them now. No longer could he look at the problem and hide behind the fact that he could not answer it, that it wasn't his problem. Fate had chosen him to be the one to whom the question finally fell, the human who stood in for the entire race. What humanity would do rested with him.

Now it was, and it was time and past time for an answer. He opened his eyes and looked around the room, savoring the moment. It was time to begin the end of this sordid saga.

"Pick them up and follow me. I have a more… appropriate place to house them." The solider nodded and directed his men. With a minimum of fuss the plants were hoisted off the ground and carried out of the room. And still they slept, as history was made around them.


	9. The best part of waking up

Sorry about the delay. Learning a new job at work (much stress, much more work, much more with the tired AL, less with the writing)

I got a Kuroneko bobblehead today. Envy me. =)

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Knives woke up with a start, his body reacting to the changed circumstances while his mind raced to comprehend the difference. Normally he was quick to shed the last vestiges of sleep, but the fatigue from his exertions clutched at him and kept his mind from moving at its accustomed pace. His first thought was of his kin, his mind reaching out for theirs. They were close to him, very close, but still sleeping so deeply that he didn't want to rouse them without need. Alex was not used to hard labor, and Vash was likely fleeing the consequences of their actions in the only way he could.

Which left facing the real world up to him. Again.

With that thought he applied himself to the process of waking up. First he had to recognize that the darkness of the room was a result of a lack of light, and not a need to raise his eyelids. That took only a few seconds. Then he had to determine if he was lying down because he was sleeping, or if there had been some coercion in the matter. Straps, or ties, or ropes, or some such. All he could sense around him was a mildly heavy blanket. There was a rather lumpy feather pillow under his head, and he seemed to be resting on a cot of some sort, given the odd curve to his spine. There weren't any items keeping him in a prone position, so he sat up. The blanket slid down to his waist and he spent a good fifteen seconds wondering why someone had bothered to tuck him in. 

Finally he decided that it was just another one of those strange human things that puzzled him from time to time, like the way a parent can be willing to die to save their child from danger, then will turn a beat the offspring within an inch of their life once the threat has passed. Some things just weren't worth puzzling over for too long.

Fatigue poisons had settled in his muscles while he slept, making his motions slow and graceless as he swung his legs over the side of the cot. He hurt in places that he had forgotten could hurt. It was his fault for succumbing to soft living over the past couple years, but that didn't stop him from wincing as he tried to stand. It appeared that Anne wasn't the only one who had started to believe that past physicality was still present. 

The first attempt to rise was aborted as his knees proved too shaky to support his weight. Placing a hand on the wall for his second try led to its success. He paused for a moment to repress the pride that the accomplishment brought him. The humans would not be swayed by his mere verticality. With careful steps, he felt his way to the other side of the room. That wasn't very productive for him as there was nothing there but more wall, so he felt his way along the far wall in hopes that there would be a door relatively soon.

There wasn't. But he didn't give into despair, since there was still another wall to be examined before he needed to panic. Step by halting step he dragged his left hand along the wall, feeling for the recess that indicated a door. After only a few paces he paused, not because he had found what he had been looking for, but because he had located the control panel for the door.

His heart rose, then sank as he realized that anyone who picked them up and put them all in a dark room wasn't likely a large enough fool to leave the door unlocked, but having gotten this far he felt that there was no harm in trying to open it. Palming the lock, he was entirely surprised to hear the gyros start spinning. The door opened before him, flooding light into the dark room. He flung up one hand to protect his eyes and the abrupt movement almost sent him to the floor.

His irritation at almost falling was compounded when he saw that there was someone on the other side of the door. Embarrassment flared at his lapse in control, and in lieu of the pain he could not currently deal out he scowled at whoever had the audacity to be watching him as he adjusted to life again. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted before he had a chance to start. 

"Are you hungry? Thirsty? We've prepared a few things for when you men woke up. Nothing fancy, but it should be filling after all the work you did."

Knives' train of thought was neatly derailed by the mention of food. His appetite woke up and flooded his brain with demands, making it difficult to focus on anything else. "Excuse me?" he managed after a moment. 

"If you're hungry now, follow me. Or if you would prefer to wait until after your brother and nephew wake up, that's fine too. I can't wait until whenever you feel comfortable." His solicitous manner seemed unfaked, but Knives had his suspicions. No human was entirely comfortable around plants. This man before him had to know what he was dealing with, and still he stood there like some butler from a long-gone era.

Knives stood in the doorway a moment longer, unsure what to do. On one hand, he was very hungry. On the other, he was still disoriented and surrounded by humans. He prevaricated for another moment, and while he tried to weigh the pros and cons of his situation his stomach growled. Loudly.

His eyes darted to the other man's face, looking for a smile or a hint of amusement at his expense. There was nothing there, nothing save a bit of concern in his eyes. "Food, then?" asked the man. Nodding, Knives cautiously stepped out into the hallway, taking his hand off the wall and trusting that his legs would hold him.


	10. is bland food?

Yes, I have been writing. But it's been on my original fic. Sorry!

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Luckily for Knives, the room with the food was close. The weak feeling in his knees was annoying, to be sure, but even worse would have been stumbling in the presence of a human. He didn't know what game they thought they were playing with him, but an obvious show of weakness could be fatal. For them, if they thought that they could do anything to him. Even at his weakest the humans were no match for him.

He could destroy this facility, if he really wanted too. He wasn't quite so weak that such a meager task was out of his reach. But he might not survive the destruction himself, and wouldn't that make the whole endeavor pointless? One killed the spiders to save the butterflies. One didn't involve themselves in a kamikaze attack on hapless arachnids.

The repast was spread out on a card table. The room was stark white and still smelled faintly of bleach. Knives looked around before sitting down at the far end of the table, assessing the fresh cleanliness of the room. Obviously, this wasn't a room in common use. The floor was tidy, but still slightly streaked with moisture from its mopping. The walls were much more white than those he recalled seeing elsewhere in the building for the most part, but there were a few patches of dingy gray they had missed when they wiped them down. He could hardly fault the condition of the room now if the spots that they missed were any indication of its prior appearance. But had he been less hungry the reek of bleach might have adversely affected his appetite.

They didn't trust him near anything that they used, and he didn't blame them. Quite. His gaze slid to the man who had followed him into the room, trying to read his expression, hoping for a hint of his intentions. There was nothing, just a bland smile and friendly eyes. Surely a ruse, but it was working. He resisted pondering the problem, knowing that his lack of caloric energy was detrimental to his thought process. After eating he would reassess the situation.

After looking over the room he turned his attention to the food. If there was a common theme to the meal, it was bland. He picked up the fork by the plate before him and stabbed a boiled chicken breast off the platter before him. He cut and ate the pale meat, chewing absentmindedly as he tried to find something on the table with a hint of taste. If this was common fare in their cafeteria, it was a wonder they could keep any employees. 

There was a bowl of oatmeal, some toasted bread, a container of applesauce, some bland white flour crackers, a bowl of white grapes, and another bowl filled with white rice. Knives dished out a serving of the rice next for the starches, then applied himself to the rest of what was offered. It wasn't a very pleasing meal but it was filling. He consoled himself with the fact that he wasn't dining for pleasure, but arming himself with the ammunition his body needed to face what the humans were about to do. The fools, they, to give him what he needed most. 

Before his appetite was sated he had eaten almost everything on the table. When done, he looked up at the man who had led him here. "I will see Anne."

He nodded, then turned to open the door. "We haven't seen any change in her condition," he offered as Knives passed him into the hall. 

"That means nothing to me besides affirming that you are incompetent." 

Before going more than a few steps they passed a couple men bearing more food. It was not the same as what Knives had been offered, being much more enticing to someone with a sense of taste. A heaping bowl of fried rice, spaghetti, some more chicken breasts, but coated in barbeque sauce instead of merely boiled, a fruit salad, ice cream, and a plate of fresh baked cookies. He turned to look after the food and watched as its bearers entered the room he had just vacated. 

"That's for Vash and Alex," his guide offered.

Knives turned to look at the man, his gaze icy as he pondered the insult. Was he someone to be so easily insulted? These humans knew what he was, and who he was. They should know that he was not one to suffer insults from fools. His mind raced as he contemplated a sufficient degree of punishment.

"They aren't as paranoid as you are," the man continued musingly. "We didn't want you to worry that we had hidden anything in the food and then not eat anything." He looked at Knives, his brown eyes meeting the cold blue ones for just a moment before skittering off to look at the wall. 

"I am not. Paranoid." The last word was spat out with the venom that he could no longer justify releasing. Knives looked back at the room. The tantalizing scent of the dishes lingered in the hall, mocking him. He hadn't even thought to worry about what might have been in the food presented. He must be going soft. Scowling, he walked back to get something tasty. Paranoid, him? The humans did want him dead, so his caution was not paranoid. It might not be justified in this instance but that didn't mean that it wasn't called for. 

His guide followed after Knives had been in the room a moment, then nearly ran into Knives as he exited the room, two warm chocolate chip cookies in either hand. With an aloof stare he took a large bite out of the first cookie.

Wisely, his guide did not smile.


	11. Examining Anne

They made their way through nearly a quarter mile of corridors before they reached the plant room that held Anne. Knives noted all the crossroads that could easily be filled with troops, the twists and turns of the halls that could hide an ambush with little trouble. They had been stashed in a very out of the way section of the plant. Knives spent the journey weighing the most likely reason for the humans' decision to stash them there. To keep the rest of the populace safe from their presence? Likely. To keep them safe? Unlikely. To make them easier to control? Most likely. Because the room was a convenient destination?

Ludicrous.

The idle musing served to keep his mind off the one thing that was worrying him. He knew that it was hardly reasonable for him to avoid a topic of thought just because it caused him some minor emotional anguish. He would find out the answer to his question soon enough, so it wasn't as if his musing on other topics provided him with much surcease from the problem.

Regardless of the pathetic nature of his desire to think on other things, he found himself nearly overwhelmed by a strange distress as they approached the door to the plant room. He could sense the mind of the angel in the bulb, but there was nothing of Anne. He forced his stomach to stay calm even as a wave of nausea crested within him.

The door to the room seemed to open so very slowly, though objectively he knew that they were proceeding at their usual pace and that it was him whose perception of time was off. Still, he was impatient.

He was in the room as soon as the impediment had slid far enough out of his way to allow him to snake through. He stalked towards the bulb, ignoring the humans clustered around the monitors. 

Anne had not been passed into the bulb by his hands. That task had fallen to Vash and Alex, as at the end of the healing he had been to exhausted to even move. Then he had been taken out of the room by the humans before his body had a chance to recover enough for him to awaken. His first site of Anne in her natural form would be this moment, this span of time separated from him by nothing more than a flight of stairs. 

He took the steps two at a time, not even feeling the muscles in his legs stretch at the unaccustomed distance. He stood at the entrance to the platform for the moment it took his eyes to adjust to the light from the bulb. The angel was easy to see but the way that it cradled Anne's form in her arms made it difficult for him to see her. Walking counterclockwise he moved around a quarter of the platform before he could see her with any clarity.

She was beautiful. Slowly he was drawn closer to the surface of the bulb, entranced by the vision before him. His nose bumped the edge of the bulb and he ceased his forward motion with as much thought as he had started it. His mind reached out for hers, hoping that he would be close enough to detect some sort of activity. She had to be healing, had to be trying to come back to the world. To come back to him.

But there was nothing. He delved deeper and deeper into her mind, past abandoned layer of self in search of the spark that animated everything, that made her who she was. Fear jolted through him, making him want to move faster and faster, but sense told him that if he tried he would only be tearing apart what was left of her mind. Lower and lower he went, farther and farther into her mind in his search. Even this close to the bulb, his skin grew clammy and he felt a chill as he could find nothing, no matter how hard he looked.

As he reached the very last reaches of her mind he finally caught a glimpse of something, a small spark guttering out in an empty corner of her soul. He flew towards it, hope and fear mixed with the elation of his find. 

Cautiously, he examined his find. His mind reached out to encompass it, to gently surround it, but not to touch it. He opened his thoughts to what was left of her mind and waited to see why she was hiding so far away from the world.

Betrayal filtered in first. Ace's, his, the world's, her former world's, all of it in a Gordian knot of pain and loss that nearly staggered him. Next was the wounded innocence of realizing that the world was never fair that never left one, no matter how calloused a soul could grow. He worked through her emotions, letting them flow through him with little effect. 

He wondered how she had managed to hide such pain from him. He had know that she was not entirely pleased with her new world, but these deep wounds in her soul ought to have been glaringly obvious. Negative emotions radiated from her in waves, and Knives rode them all smoothly until the last one. 

Despair. With her last conscious moment she had decided that there was nothing for her to live for, that she was tired of the pain of living. She had tried having a second life, tried to shoulder the burden of a species that didn't even know she was a member. She had tried to love again, to believe that there could be someone in the universe that would accept her regardless of her scars. His actions with Ace, and the girl's response to anything to do with Anne had destroyed her in a way that she had never let on. The heart had died in her when the dog crushed her throat, and she accepted the death that one she had adored had handed her.

Anne had given up.


	12. Annoying insect

Oh, yeah… writing. Miss me much?

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Knives stood, resting his forehead against the glass and contemplating this new little problem until he heard someone climb the stairs. He straightened and turned to meet the eyes of the man who had guided him here.

"How is she?" he asked solicitously. Knives merely looked at him, saying nothing until the guide grew uncomfortable and amended his statement. "We can't get any brain activity on our monitors, but we don't know if it's because they aren't calibrated for more than one being inside the bulb or if there is something wrong with her."

"She's hurt," he responded curtly. _Isn't that obvious you moronic human fool _was more than just implied in the tone.

His guide opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. He closed it and turned to look up at the still form of Anne, floating serenely in the bulb. 

"We like her, too," came to him, the words almost too soft for even Knives to hear. 

He stared at the man until the weight of his gaze registered. When his guide turned, he tried to meet Knives' eyes but the anger that burned there forced him to avert his focus to the plant's chin. 

"If you like her so much," Knives said, each word clipped short, "then why is she hiding from you in there?"

"Well… I…" He fumbled for words, turning to look up at Anne in the vain hope that she would spark some degree of eloquence. "I don't know."

"I can tell you. She's afraid of you. She is sure that you hate her, despise her. She's tired of pretending that it doesn't matter, that she is superior enough that your negativity doesn't affect her. She doesn't think that you like her in any way. And she's damn tired of dealing with you."

The guide did not respond to Knives. He shifted all his attention to the woman in the bulb, no longer looking at her as an excuse to not look at Knives, but because he wanted to see some clue that would tell him Knives was wrong.

Her unresponsive form gave him nothing, not in support of Knives' words, nor to deny them.

"I never knew…" he whispered, words trailing off.

"She didn't want you to know. All of you are so irrational when faced with something superior to you. Humans fear that they are no longer the darlings of evolution, no longer in control of their destiny. As you enslaved nature and called it your right, you fear that those above you will do the same."

"Won't you?"

"I'd rather see you dead. Beyond that, I don't care what you do, so long as you all leave me alone."

"What about the rest of you?"

"What about them?"

"What about Ace? What does she want?"

"From the looks of things, she wants revenge."

"I was afraid of that," he said with a sigh.

"If you were so afraid, I would suggest that you shouldn't have done anything to her that she would want to take revenge for. Consider whatever pain she ends up giving you a form of justice."

"Ends up? Aren't you going to try to stop her?" The guide's voice held a small tinge of panic.

"Why should I? One, I prefer you dead. Two, you are the ones who harmed her in the first place. Why should I keep you from the repercussions of your actions?"

"Innocent people will be hurt!"

"Probably. Assuming that you feel anything human could possibly be innocent. I do not." Tired of the conversation, Knives pushed past his guide and walked down the stairs. He strode over to the closest monitor and waited for its operator to vacate his seat. He scrolled through screens of data, looking for clues that might help him bring Anne back to him. Numbers and factoids rolled past him, nothing leaping out at him as a way to fix her. He filed away every small detail in the hope that it might be valuable but he found nothing obviously worthwhile in the human's operating system.

Not that he had expected to.

His guide had stood behind him as he learned all that there was for him here. As Knives stood he waited, then made to follow as Knives left the room.

"Stay," Knives said curtly as he reached the door. "I know my way out."

"But you might, I mean there might be something I can do for you."

"There is. You can leave me alone."

"Don't you want to stay close to Anne?"

"Not if it means being close to you."

"But what if her condition changes?"

"I will know. I do not need you to keep me informed."

"Where will you go?"

"I don't feel the need to tell you."

"I…I was told to not let you leave."

"You can't stop me."

"I know," he replied, despair in his voice. "But I can ask you to stay, can't I?"

Knives stopped and turned to look at the annoying insect. He wondered why he was supposed to care about what impossibilities this creature was or was not supposed to perform. "I will not stay here one moment longer than I have to. Being near you pathetic humans sickens me more than you can imagine." He watched the man turn very pale and guessed that the rage he felt was mirrored on his face. With a slight effort he blanked his visage. 

As he turned to leave a thought skittered off the surface of his mind. Anne was trying to make these humans treat their sisters better, to make them trust the plants and see them as something to be valued as more than a commodity.

He wasn't helping her very much.

It was a supreme effort, but he managed to say something helpful. "I will be at Anne's apartment. For now." His started to walk again, his long legs stretching in an effort to get him farther faster from those disgusting words. 

His guide would have to be happy with that much.


	13. Picking up

Oooh, look. I live!

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Knives walked into the empty apartment and sighed. It seemed surreal, that the place was untouched. Was it even possible that not a day had passed since the current tragedy began? The darkness of the night outside gave him no hints, but the remains of his breakfast on the kitchen table were not congealed enough for any more time to have passed. Dispiritedly he picked up his bowl and rinsed it out. He had left it on the table to give Anne an excuse to yell at him, but now it seemed accusatory. She would walk in, see the dirty dishes, and then loudly start to wonder how he managed to live without a maid in all the years before she arrived. He would then act completely unconcerned, say something about how he couldn't be bothered to perform such a menial task. A fight would be certain to follow.

But making up was so much fun. Well worth staging a few arguments for the result. Save that there would be no argument tonight, and that Anne seemed to have given up on arguing with him ever again.

He set the bowl on the drying rack and sighed as he wiped his hands on a towel. No making up today. Plus, the milk had dried up and the cereal gunk had dried on the bowl, making it much harder to clean off than he would have liked. 

The apartment seemed so very empty. When the six of them were present it seemed barely large enough to hold them all. Now the walls seemed to echo the emptiness back at him. Nothing tied him to the kitchen, so he wandered the apartment, picking up random objects and setting them down again. With nothing better to do, he flopped down on the bed. The slats creaked ominously and he rolled his eyes at the shoddy construction. He reached up and grabbed a pillow, then proceeded to try to pummel it into a form that would be comfortable. 

After two minutes he gave up and buried his head in it instead.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but unconsciousness eluded him. After his long nap he was no longer tired. No, that was a lie. His mind was still tired; indeed, it was fatigued nearly to its limits. But his body was filled with a restless energy that kept him from staying in one spot long enough to fall asleep. 

He wasted a half an hour before he conceded that the night was not yet over for him. But as he sat up he was faced with the dilemma that he had been unable to elude with slumber.

There was nothing for him to do.

The night was still and quiet, the early hours of the morning not yet arrived. Looking outside, not a single soul broke through the puddles of light cast by the streetlamps. No whisper of sound betrayed a foot on pavement. Even the birds slept, their chirps silenced by the blanket of night.

Knives broke off looking out the window and turned to peer at the apartment, hoping that some overlooked entertainment would show itself. Games eluded him, but chores danced before him. He couldn't help but see the small heaps of clothes that lay haphazardly near their bags. Some were dirty and a few were passing clean, but they could all use a wash. Knives rolled off the bed and scooped up armfuls of laundry, then took them out to the living room to sort.

He finished the piles, but decided to grab a glass of water before he headed to the basement to do the wash. The machines down there were rickety and old, and the dryers in particular could take up to two hours just to get the clothes a little less damp. But while he was in the kitchen he saw that the counters needed to be wiped down. And while he was wiping down the counters he thought to put away the toaster, but before he put it away he dumped the crumb trap all over his freshly cleaned counter and over half the floor.

So then he cleaned the counters again, and the floor, and then he decided that while he was at it he should probably wipe down the tabletop as well. But before he could finish cleaning the table he had to pick up the papers scattered all over. The recycling center was down in the basement, so he might as well take them with him when he went down there. A quick look about the kitchen later and he was picking up the papers that had congregated atop the refrigerator. 

Or at least he was trying to.

As he reached for the last pile he accidentally knocked it back between the machine and the wall. With a string of hissed curses he tried to shove his hand back there, but the clearances were all wrong. He stepped back a pace to glare at the refrigerator, then shrugged. No one would know that there was anything back there but him, and it wasn't like he cared. He picked up the papers he had managed to collect and took them into the living room.

But after setting them atop the dark load he sighed and returned to the kitchen. No one else would know but him, but it would drive him crazy. He carefully dragged the refrigerator out and reached behind it, fingers questing near the ground for whatever papers he could find. 

He wasn't expecting to find anything taped to the back of the refrigerator, but that was what greeted his fingers as he ran them over the obverse face of the machine. Tape, and something wrapped in a paper bag.

Intrigued, he pulled it off and set it on the counter. Absently, he pushed the refrigerator back in place, then pulled the wrapping off the object, placing the discarded brown paper in the pile to be recycled.

And what was left in his hands was a book.


	14. Reading

I'm so lazy. Kick my butt and make me work, ok?

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Vash and Alex stumbled into the apartment a hair after eight in the morning, their arrival heralded by sunshine and a bit of grumbling as they bumped into each other. It wasn't exhaustion or clumsiness that made them stumble, but a simple trap left in front of the door.

"Hey, dad, why are our clothes all over the living room floor?" Alex looked out from behind his father at the strange vista that greeted their arrival.

"I have no clue." Vash peered around for his brother, first peeking in the bedroom before locating him at the kitchen table. Alex left him to give the twins some time alone together, and also to get the first completely uninterrupted shower of the past few weeks. He felt very guilty that he was looking forward to enough hot water to get properly clean, but his skin was tingling at the thought.

Vash walked into the kitchen and pulled out a chair, then sat himself gingerly at the edge of it. "Knives," he started hesitantly, pausing for a moment to see if his brother would react. When he didn't even look up from the book he was reading, Vash gamely started the speech he had composed on the walk to the apartment. "Alex and I stopped by to see how Anne is doing. The technicians told us that their monitors had detected no change." He paused again, waiting for some indication that he had been heard. A nod, a noise, looking up from the book, but there was nothing. Time stretched out between them, a moment of silence broken only by the scritch of paper on paper as Knives turned a page. Vash took a deep breath and delivered the news that he knew his brother was not going to want to hear. 

"She may be dead."

There was still no response. Knives' breathing was still calm and even, and his lack of reaction made Vash wonder if the shock of what had happened had unhinged his brother's mind a bit more. The reality was that Knives' ability to perceive what he considered true and obvious had never been terribly strong, and this might have been enough to completely separate his brother from the real world.

He let his gaze travel over the partially cleaned kitchen, and thought about the piles of clothes in the living room. Knives never did chores. Chores were for machines to take care of, freeing the superior being for higher pursuits than mere drudgery. Even when they had been children wandering together over Gunsmoke, it had fallen to him to clean their ship suits. That his brother felt superior to him hadn't stuck him as ironic, then.

And then there was the pertinent fact that while Knives had noticed that the clothes on the floor were dirty, the clothes on his body were still stained with Anne's blood. He still had the small smears on his face that had collected there when the three of them were working over her. A few were patchy, indicating that wherever Knives' mind had gone it still was connected enough to his body that he could feel itching. Vash tried to tell himself that this was a good thing, that Knives was only in shock, but he had the sick feeling that he was lying to himself.

With a deep breath, Vash prepared himself for the part of his speech he wished wasn't true. He leaned in and rested his right hand lightly on his twin's shoulder and softly said, "We need to accept the possibility that she might be dead."

There was still no response. A faint flinch was the only indication that Knives had heard him, and as seconds passed Vash wasn't sure if it had been a flinch or just another breath. He sat back in his chair, letting his arm slip down until it dangled at his side. He looked at his brother and wondered what he was supposed to do now that Knives had snapped.

Then his brother placed the book on the table, face down and open to keep his place. "Anne is not dead," he said calmly. "She wants to be, but the bulb is keeping her alive. Anything beyond that is up to me, or to us if you feel like helping." He looked at his brother, clear and calm blue eyes meeting troubled aqua without flinching away. 

"We might not be able to bring her back, not if she doesn't want to come."

"I'm not going to give her a choice in the matter. She will live, and with me."

Vash glanced away and sighed. "I don't think it will be that easy."

Knives laughed, one quick bark that surprised Vash's gaze back to his brother. "Of course it won't be. But what makes you think that I am going to fail? I want her, and I will have her."

Vash shook his head slowly, a small smile trying very hard to crease his lips, then looked at the book that his brother was reading while he tried to think of something else to say. 

Flames to Ashes, by Kimberley Dawne. The front cover had a stylistic phoenix with the picture of a woman superimposed, bodies lying at her feet. His mind took a moment to make the connection, then his eyes once again snapped towards his brother. "Is that what I think it is?" They had thought to look for this book when they were released from the confines of Knives' ship, but with one thing and another hadn't had the chance to scour the secondhand book stores for one of the few copies they could be sure had traveled from earth with the colonists.

"Indeed. There was a book of Anne's former life somewhere on this planet, and the wench had it hidden behind her refrigerator." Knives picked it up again and continued to read slowly through the pages, his mind carefully weighing each word and image before moving onto the next. Vash leaned back in his chair and whistled slowly before getting up to chase his son out of the shower.


	15. Comprehension

Sorry about the break. I got rather sick, and then my dog died, so I've been a little short on energy this month.

********************************************************************************

With a whispered sigh, Knives closed the book. He had read it three times and was tempted to read it a fourth, but it didn't take an empath to feel the impatience that his relatives were emoting. They had both happened to wander in for just another glass of water enough times that they were both rotating from the kitchen to the bathroom and back to annoy him. The cycle didn't seem to have an end, but it did have a few breaks. He timed his finish to coincide with one of these, just to have time to sit with his thoughts.

He lightly set the book down on the table, then rubbed the palms of his hands over his eyes. There was so much explained in there, so many quirks and foibles that he would have never the genesis of without that guide. His hands dropped to his sides and he looked at the book, lying so casually on the table before him. Purposefully, he slouched in his chair until his nose was nearly level with the table, but aside from his point of view, nothing changed. He wasn't sure if he had expected anything different.

The cover was lurid and deceiving. Anne had never stacked bodies at her feet. They had all fallen behind her as she moved towards her target faster than gravity could draw the bodies to the bosom of the earth. Or at least so the author claimed. And there were no earthshaking special effects like the ones pictured on the cover. A firebird. Ludicrous.

No, it was just a depressing saga of the life of a villain. She had tried to do good, but her anger and her hate blinded her from the right path until it was too late for her to walk it. No matter how she tried, the sins of her past clutched her too close for her to reach that road.

He wasn't sure what the author had meant when she put pen to paper, or (and he lifted the cover to make a quick check of the copyright date) fingers to keys. It wasn't a cautionary tale, or an uplifting one. There were no heroes, no winners. The world of the book was one of chaos and entropy, a gradual descent into tribal feuds governed by erstwhile houses of learning and arms dealers. He couldn't easily come up with a worse combination than ivory towers combined with greed for pain. 

There was no happy ending. Anne had died like she said, and then the book went on to tell of the desecration of her corpse once she had departed from that world. The only constant in the tome was the spilling of blood, from the abnormal body birth that her mother had insisted on to the final paragraph, where the blood collected from her corpse was scattered over the sands of the Sahara Desert, to ensure that nothing could ever grow from her remains. 

But aside from the depressing nature of her story, Knives was pleased to have learned a few things about Anne. He knew that they could have lived together a hundred years and she would not have spoken of many of these events. He could sense the scars that they left behind, like ghosts of the events that created them. Anne had learned to live with them, to hide the remains of her pain with a smile or feigned indifference. But he could sometimes sense when something had gone wrong in her past, like when he had suggested that they go out for an ice cream sundae one night. It was the slightest hint of a pause, a veil dropped over her sight as she carefully didn't feel. It was in the way her gaze would flicker away from his every now and again, her vision seeking out something safe, the floor or the wall or her hands as she hid the pang that afflicted her.

She didn't tell him that her husband had asked her out to dinner, then confronted her with his desire for divorce when she was taking her first bite of an ice cream sundae. Her favorite food, now a trigger for one of the things she wished she could forget. He hadn't asked what was wrong then, and he wouldn't ask now, but he would be more circumspect in his choice of desserts,

His mind wandered into ways to supplant the unpleasant memory with a pleasant one of his devising. He was overwhelmed by the ways he could make use of whipped cream, and brought his mind back to the book with a firm admonition to stay on track.

Vash walked in before he had much of a chance to ponder the book anymore. The glass in his hand was still nearly half full, making the flimsy excuse even more of a joke, but he didn't care at the moment.

Vash looked over at his brother, taking in the slouch with more than a hint of surprise. Knives, sitting in a manner less than perfect? He couldn't count the times his twin had lectured him on the need for proper posture, that their lives would stretch to a length that improper alignment of the spine in their youth would cause greater troubles than they needed in the future. 

But there he was, more under the table than above it. Vash set his glass down by the sink and walked over and crouched down until his head was level with his brother's. "Good book?" he asked, not sure what else to say.

"Not terribly." Knives gazed at the book a moment longer, then turned his head so his eyes met Vash's. "I'm tired." That wasn't what he had meant to say, his mind still more on the story then on making conversation, but it was true all the same.

"Come on then," said Vash. "Let's get you to bed." He helped his brother up out of the chair, and if his eyes lingered on the book as they left the kitchen, it was only because he had the suspicion that his son would get to read it before Vash got his chance.


	16. How terrible

Monthly chapter update? Check!

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While Knives slept, first Alex and then Vash read through the book. Both were sobered by what lay upon the pages, and by the knowledge that they knew the person who had suffered through so many tragedies. 

Alex had stared at the far wall while he waited for his father to finish the book. Silence reigned in the living room as Alex futilely wished for his mother. He had read things about Anne that he was sure she would want no man to know. He wanted his mother there for her wisdom, her perspective, and to be sure that she didn't fall into the hands of some of the bastards from that book. He didn't want to believe that there could be people who would do such terrible things. Certainly there weren't as many as had been in that book. There couldn't be, there just couldn't. Not here on Gunsmoke. 

As soon as he heard the back cover close on the last page, he spoke. "Now what are we supposed to do?" He didn't try to suppress the quaver in his voice. To pretend that he wasn't affected by the book would be to pretend that Anne's suffering had never happened. 

"I don't know," said Vash, his voice soft but troubled. "I don't know how to make this sort of thing better."

"Can we, I mean… Is there a way we can…?" His voice trailed off as he failed to find words to say what he felt.

"Can we save her?" said Vash, his gaze lighting on his son for a moment before flitting to rest on the far wall. "I don't know. I've never tried to deal with trauma like this. I've never seen trauma like this. This is unbelievable. I know that people can be bad, but to hate this much, to hate anyone so much that you can do what they did to her… I've never seen anything like that before."

"I want mom." 

"Meryl is supposed to be back tomorrow. We could call her now, but she'd still not make it into the city much earlier. I think it's better that she not have to worry about this until then."

"Dad, that's not a good idea. Mom's going to hit you."

"I know she will. But that hurts less then knowing that she's sad and I can't be near her."

Alex was silent a moment. "She's not going to see it that way," he muttered.

Vash sighed and nodded. "That's why she'll hit me. But I think it's better this way."

Alex sighed and slouched further into the couch. "This just sucks. I wish yesterday had never happened. Why did Ace have to go off like that? What's her problem?"

Vash draped an arm over his son's shoulders and held him close. "She's jealous, and hurt, and probably more than just a little afraid. I don't think she expected to beat Anne, and certainly didn't expect to nearly kill her. Remember when you were younger, and you would hit me or Meryl when you got mad?"

"Dad, I was just a baby then."

"It's a common response, to strike back at that which brings you pain. Ace didn't have anyone who cared enough for her as a child to get past that response, to teach her that there are better ways of dealing with emotions then to lash out. Anne hurt her, so Anne needed to be hurt in exchange. It's simple."

"But it's stupid. Logically, then Anne would want to hurt Ace, and then Ace would hurt Anne again and it would never end. It's so much easier to just talk things out!"

"Neither of them are very good at talking. Both of them have been hurt by people who supposedly cared for them. That makes it very hard for either of them to say what they really feel, because to let someone else know that is to let them know how to hurt you the most. Sometimes your soul bleeds too much for you to dare to trust anyone, even the ones you love. Caring seems so fragile against the weight of pain."

"Sounds like they're just being stupid to me."

Vash ruffled his son's hair. "Spoken like someone who has never been hurt."

"You say that like it's something to be ashamed of."

"No, you're lucky. I hope that no one ever hurts you so much that you close yourself off from the world. But don't pretend that others are less than you because they do. Not everyone is strong enough to keep an open heart. I haven't been."

"But dad, you like everybody."

"But I don't always let them know. It's easier to like people when they don't like you back. It's impersonal, a distance that protects your heart even while you pretend that it's open."

Alex sighed again, then fell silent. Minutes ticked by unheeded by the pair as both were lost in thought. Alex pondered pain of the heart and how to heal it, while Vash reflected on what he had learned of Anne's past. 

Both were brought back to reality by the sounds of stirring from the bedroom. They were looking at the door when Knives emerged, hair still mussed from sleep. Waiting for him to make the first move, they stared at him for a moment.

He blinked a couple times, then scowled. "What?" he demanded as he passed into the kitchen.

"We read the book," called out Vash. His arm slipped off his son's shoulder as they both sat up.

"So?"

"So… we were wondering we are going to do next."

Knives walked in with a glass of water and an irate look. "I don't know what you're going to do next, but I'm going to get Anne out of that damned bulb." He emptied the glass in one swig, then set it down on the arm of the couch. "It's time that woman stopped running." And with that enigmatic response he pulled on his shoes and left the apartment.


	17. Look, a new chapter!

Knives' entrance to the Plant Facility was not terribly difficult, but it was rather different than he had expected. The guard looked up from his post as he entered and, by the way his eyes widened, obviously recognized him. Braced for an attempt to bar his path, and on some level welcoming the chance to release some of his tension, he was surprised and a bit disappointed when the guard smiled at him. 

"Mr. Millions, I was told to expect you. They thought that you would be here earlier this morning. Please wait a moment while I page Mr. Herman."

Knives looked at the guard, nonplussed, as the man turned his attention to the phone. A few phrases were exchanged, and then the guard looked up again. "If you would just take a seat for a few moments, the President will be down shortly.

Knives perched on the edge of the closest chair, and spent the next two minutes wondering what made humans consider fake plants attractive. If the somewhat tree shaped example next to him was any example of the kind, he could find nothing aesthetically pleasing about the fake leaves or the plastic pressed trunk. He wondered idly if the plant had been packed on the ships prior to their departure from Earth, or if it had been produced on Gunsmoke. In the first case, he couldn't imagine anyone so attracted to this… thing… that they would pick this as a part of the baggage they were allotted. In the second, he wondered who had woken up one morning thinking that what Gunsmoke really needed were some shoddy looking false plants, and that he was just the person to fill that need.

Before he could exhaust the imaginative properties of the second notion, Mr. Herman was standing before him. Knives stood and looked down at the nervously smiling man and wondered what was in store for him.

With a gesture and a bit of nervous babbling, he was directed through the main door and off into the first room on the right side of the corridor. 

"If you're going to be coming and going, we need to have the proper sort of identification to get you where you need to go. No need for you to be held up by someone who thinks he should be more vigilant then he was told to be, after all." The babble was punctuated by nervous laughter, then continued. "You'll be cleared for almost everywhere; we aren't going to hide anything from you. Just the vaults and the my office, and even I need to sign in when I go into the vaults, ha-ha, because what's stored there is our heritage. No one person has more access to our heritage than another, right?"

Knives allowed himself to be photographed and duly entered into the computer as a person allowed to go where he wanted.

"This will keep you from starting any more fires to get where you want to go, ha-ha. Just pass it over the black pads and the doors will open for you."

"I am well versed in basic security system procedures," Knives said testily, hoping that this would be over soon and that the human would go babble at someone else. He knew that he was supposed to acknowledge that the president of the plant had come down personally to guide him through this process, and that this was supposed to be some sort of honor. Frankly, all he wanted was to get to Anne, and after only a minute of the man's presence, to be somewhere quieter.

A side effect of living by himself for so many years, but he was easily irked by senseless chatter. He debated the pros and cons of demanding that the little man be quiet, but before coming to a conclusion the ordeal was over and he was allowed to go on his way.

He was surprised that he was allowed to walk through the halls without some sort of escort, but Mr. Herman had merely walked him to the door of the room before turning him loose. A part of him had expected to find an escort joining him along the way, but aside from passing a few scattered groups of employees in the halls, his travels were undertaken alone.

Entering the room, only two technicians were there to take care of the plant. They were seated at the terminals dedicated to ensuring that the plant received enough nutrients and that her power balances were properly calibrated. All the terminals dedicated to regulating power flow were conspicuously empty. Both looked up at him, one smiled and said hello. Knives ignored them and the greeting, moving to the bulb more quickly than he had walked through the halls, but still not quite running.

He stood where he could see Anne and saw that nothing had changed from the last time he was there. Her eyes were still closed, her face still slack and unresponsive. 

"I'm not letting you go," he said, then sat. His back rested against the glass of the bulb, and he tilted his head back until it touched the warm surface as well.

He relaxed and let his mind reach out for hers. This time instead of ripping through her mind in the hopes of finding her, he drifted down through all the layers of her mind until he reached that small, last spark. Gently, he enfolded it with his mind, careful to not disturb the few flickerings that remained. He felt her respond to his presence, a wordless, thoughtless gesture like nothing more than a sleeper protesting the need to get up. Softly, he soothed her until the protests subsided, and then he clamped his mind hard around hers and drew her up one level of her mind, into her earliest memories. 

Any protest she might have made was entirely ignored.


	18. Anne's earliest memories

P Her earliest memories were typical. Held in her mother's arms for the first few weeks of her life, she knew the attention that every child craves. But soon, too soon, she remembered crying and having no one answer her, no one comfort her, no one pick her up and murmur to her. A baby can't understand that it isn't wanted, that it isn't needed, that it isn't useful. It knows only the moment, knows only need and not-need.   
  
P When she cried she was fed, or changed. When she wanted nothing more than to be held she was ignored. A smart child, she soon stopped crying but she never quit missing the protected feeling she got when lying in her mother's arms, in anyone's arms.   
  
P She remembered what it felt like when her eyes began to register shapes and colors. Her crib was white, her bedding white as well. The skin of her body looked oddly dark against the heavily bleached sheets. She would wave her arms quickly to try to block off the sight of so much white, so much light reflecting into her face. A mobile hung above her head, tattered pieces of cardboard held together by limp pieces of string and bent wire. Here her memories grew a little mudlled, her older mind ascribing names to the shapes she viewed. Yellow square, red circle, green star, blue heart, purple hexagon. The upper two corners of the sqaure were bent down and tattered, the brown of the cardboard showing through the paint.   
  
P The bed was not uncomfortable, or at least she didn't remember being in any pain. For hours she would lie there, ignored until it was the desginated time to feed her, or to change her, or to clean her. The woman who came to care for her smelled of cigar smoke and her hands were rough.  
  
P Her mother couldn't even be bothered to hire a nurse for her unwanted child.  
  
P The task had fallen to a maid, a woman with tired blue eyes and a face that time had not been kind to. Her touch was not gentle, but she was never over-rough with the poor child. She was just too busy to give the sort of care that a baby deserves, pulled in too many directions to enjoy the latest task added to her chores.   
  
P She would talk to the girl, though, making her a beloved change from the typical silence of the room. The tone was not kind, but it was not unkind, either. The maid would complain to the child, using her as an outlet on which to vent all her cares. The deliveryman was late, the lady was lost in another fantasy and calling for a pet years dead. Why she never called for her child troubled her, but she figured that it was because the girl was forgotten.   
  
P After her tasks were done the woman would leave and the girl would be lost in her thoughts. Given so little to stimulate her mind, she thought instead about the arms that had once held her, the scent of the woman that was so different than the one she now knew. A scent that tickeld the nose and made her senses smile. Later she would know that it was the smell of roses, but as a baby she had never known flowers. Only this room, only these few bright shapes. And her crib, and her body.  
  
P No one saw her the first time she rolled over, or the first time she sat up. Her hands grew strong from grabbing the bright white sheets and messing them about to create shadows, anything to break the expanse of nothingness.   
  
P Then her eyes could focus on the far-off window, and even outside the window. Blue sky entranced her, and she used the bars of her crib to stand, to get herself as close to the window as possible. It was bright out there but not always bright, and sometimes the wind would blow the branches of the tree just below her window up high enough for her to see them. Green! Green like the star but a completely different shape. The branches would flash before her too quickly for her mind to grasp their look, but that only made her want to see them more.  
  
P It was only two weeks after she first stood that she managed to get out of her crib. More by luck than by intention she managed to release the latch that held the bars up. It was simple after that to fall over the edge. She crawled to the window, but the wall was too high. She could see less here than she could from her crib. The disappointment was enough to make her want to cry had she not been trained to see tears as useless.  
  
P Sitting by the window could not hold her interest, so she crawled to the door and played in the stream of air that blew into the room. She was hit in the head by the door when the maid came in to feed her. Stifling a curse, the woman looked behind the door, wondering what obstruction could have possibly been in the room. Upon finding the girl there her breath caught in her throat. How had the girl gotten out of her crib? It was unheard of for a six month old child to be already escaping from her crib.  
  
P The child only knew that her life changed after that day. So many people visited her now, some to poke her with needles, some to play with her and show her strange new things. Different colors, shapes, textures, smells, everything was new and exciting. She looked for the scent that she remembered, but it was never there. The arms that had once held her had gone away, and in time she quit looking for them at all. 


End file.
